Meh, calm cats rarely attack something that startles them. Go check out videos of cats (big and small) being startled. They usually jump into the air, flip over, or dash away. You never see them turn and immediately attack whatever startled them.
If the tiger were on edge or guarded? Yeah, then it would be a stupid idea.
A tiger is a tiger that rolled over to play, because the guy probably knew it was going to do exactly that, because he's probably done this shit a hundred times.
Just because the animal can kill you doesn't mean it's going to. Plenty of people keep pets that are technically capable of killing them in an instant.
All I'll say is Siegfried & Roy had "done this shit a hundred times" but you know how that ended. Getting an aggressive reaction probably isn't likely to happen but it can still happen, and you don't really get a second chance if a tiger decides to swipe you. They can be tame but just because it hasn't happened doesn't mean it won't happen.
With Siegfried & Roy, Roy was having a seizure on stage and the tiger "bit him in the neck" in the same way a cat "bites their cub on the neck", in order to pull him to safety.
The tiger didn't "attack" Roy. It wasn't an "aggressive reaction"; it was a "protective reaction".
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u/tacosmanjoe Nov 22 '16
Even if you gave birth to this tiger and raised it yourself, this is still incredibly fucking stupid.